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{{JP Boyd on Family Law TOC}}
The most important pieces of legislation about family law in British Columbia are the provincial ''[[Family Law Act]]'' and the federal ''[[Divorce Act]]''. There is also a very important federal regulation, the [[Child Support Guidelines]], and an important academic paper, the [[Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines]]. You may also run into other provincial and federal laws, like the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/8481 Name Act]'', the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/848q Partition of Property Act],'' or the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/7vfd Canada Pension Plan]'', which weren't written just for family law disputes but may still relate to your situation. There are also some international treaties that might apply, most commonly the [http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.text&cid=24 Hague Convention on Child Abduction] and the [http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx UN Convention on the Rights of the Child].
This section describes the primary legislation on family law, and briefly reviews some of the more important secondary legislation and international treaties touching on family law issues.
The federal ''[[Divorce Act]]'', the provincial ''[[Family Law Act]],'' and the federal [[Child Support Guidelines]] are central to family law in British Columbia. While some of the subjects covered by the ''Divorce Act'' and the ''Family Law Act'' are the same, there are significant differences between the two laws that you need to be aware of.
Only the ''[[Divorce Act]]'' deals with divorce, and the ''Divorce Act'' only applies to married spouses. Only the ''[[Family Law Act]]'' deals with the guardianship of children and the division of property and debts, but the ''Family Law Act'' applies to everyone, regardless of the nature of their family relationship. Both statutes deal with parenting children, children's parenting schedules, child support, and spousal support. One of the most important distinctions between the two laws, as we'll talk about later, is how they define important terms like ''spouse'', ''parent'', and ''child''. Depending on the particular law you're dealing with, you may fall ins or outside of them, and that can have an important impact on your family law problem and the options available to you.
Both the ''Divorce Act'' and the ''Family Law Act'' rely on the [[Child Support Guidelines]] to calculate child support and the payment of children's special or extraordinary expenses. The Guidelines are a regulation to the ''Divorce Act'' and are adopted by the ''Family Law Act''.
#draw on lessons learned to support and promote prevention initiatives and best practices with respect to intervention.
The provincial ''[http://canlii.ca/t/84dv Child, Family and Community Service Act]'' gives the government, specifically the [http://www.gov.bc.ca/mcf/ Ministry for Children and Family Development], the power to intervene when children are believed to be suffering from abuse or neglect or are at risk of suffering from abuse or neglect. The act regulates the conditions under which child protection workers may intervene, when children can be seized, the conditions in which children may be placed in the care of the government, and specifies the authority and powers of child protection workers.
===Enforcement of support obligations===
The provincial ''[http://canlii.ca/t/8481 Name Act]'' is the law that deals with changes of name, both for a married spouse following divorce and for anyone who hankers to be called something different. (The process is fairly simple for a spouse following divorce.) The ''[http://canlii.ca/t/84fk Vital Statistics Act]'' talks about the registration of new births and about the naming of infants, and should be read if you're thinking of calling your child something different like Moon Unit or Blue Ivy.
There's more information about naming and changing names in the aptly-named [[Naming and Changes of Name]] section of the [[Further Topics and Overlapping Overlg Legal Issues in Family Law]] chapter.
==International treaties==